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Efficiency alone almost certainly will not allow us to avoid climate catastrophe, due to the Jevons Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https:

Efficiency alone almost certainly will not allow us to avoid climate catastrophe, due to the Jevons Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox When an activity uses less energy and therefore becomes less expensive, people tend to simply engage more in that activity, until they use more energy than they did before. One reason why is obvious from your attitude here: our culture considers life to be more luxurious and enjoyable when you can do and consume more stuff, and advancing the idea of doing/consuming less is considered backwards and not "useful". Insulation at the scale needed to avoid climate catastrophe would require a massive international mobilization, along the lines of the Green New Deal and a Green Marshall Plan, to renovate all buildings everywhere before 2050. Sadly the political will to do this seems absent from almost every country, with a couple possible exceptions such as Chile attempting to rewrite their constitution to prioritize climate justice. Basically no countries are approaching even the inadequate Paris agreement targets. And if you achieved such insulation, without other more drastic changes to our society, people would just run their AC/heat more to reach more luxurious temperatures, and we would not avoid any greenhouse gas emissions.

somewhereoutth 4y ago
Yes, a very important principle. See also road building and induced demand. Therefore we should be working to reduce supply of fossil fuels, to 'keep it in the ground'. If there is less to go round, then efficiencies will still be found but used to maintain what we had (as far as practicable) as opposed to increasing demand
- fmajid 4y ago
  The concept of “induced demand” as if it’s a bad thing is irredeemably stupid. It’s like saying “adding Internet bandwidth is pointless because demand will just rise to match capacity, and we should go back to the days of 56K modems”.
  - somewhereoutth 4y ago
    It is a bad thing if we fully understand the personal and social cost of car driving.
- alex_sf 4y ago
  Which then goes right back to the criticism at the top of this thread: just raise prices and kill poor people.
  - somewhereoutth 4y ago
    Raise prices yes, but also redistribute wealth so that poor people don't die. Above a reasonable threshold, personal wealth is arguably theft from the commons anyway.
    - cloutiertyler 4y ago
      I assume you recognize that if you raise prices but also redistribute wealth, people would still collectively continue to use the resource in the same amount. Someone has to go without to reduce the total consumption. Who is it in your example? And by how much such that the total usage decreases?
balfirevic 4y ago
> And if you achieved such insulation, without other more drastic changes to our society, people would just run their AC/heat more to reach more luxurious temperatures. But that has an upper limit - there is an ideal temperature. People won't be cooling their houses to 15°C in the summer and heating them to 40°C in the winter.
pg_bot 4y ago
I dislike whoever named this phenomenon since it is not a paradox. A lot of people bring this up, but fail to realize that there is a limit to induced demand. For example if you are able to light your house with led bulbs you aren't suddenly going to throw up more lights to light up the neighborhood. There are actual limits to demand and you can exceed them through efficiency gains.
- game-of-throws 4y ago
  There are individual limits to demand, but not societal limits. If LEDs become more efficient, I will not throw up more lights, but Times Square will - and eventually they'll expand operations and build Los Angeles Square. Jevons Paradox is about these societal demands, which influence collective usage of a resource in the opposite direction from individual usage.
throw0101a 4y ago
> Efficiency alone almost certainly will not allow us to avoid climate catastrophe, due to the Jevons Paradox: Meh, it depends. Having a light bulb that uses 15W instead of 100W to illuminate a room is certainly a win. There's only so many lights that you'd put in a given area to achieve the same result, even if you add more for aesthetic reasons: there's only so many lumens that are useful in an area. Furnaces and water heaters are now >90% efficient, and given that they (direct) vent from the outside, and exhaust to the outside increases safety and air leakage. Do you add more heaters and furnaces to a house because each is more efficient. Cars are more efficient, and yet total annual distance driven (in the US) seems to have plateaued and fallen over the last decade or so: * https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/12/distance-driven-per-person-is-still-down-from-its-maximum-in-2004.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/12/distance-driven-per...
- skyfaller 4y ago
  > There's only so many lights that you'd put in a given area to achieve the same result, even if you add more for aesthetic reasons: there's only so many lumens that are useful in an area. You'd think that, but we now see people experimenting with light bulbs that are bright as the sun, purportedly to improve their mood: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21660718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21660718 "I bought an extremely bright “corn cob” style bulb. It emits as much light as about 40 incandescents, and produces enough waste heat that it needs an internal cooling fan to dissipate it." It's not difficult to imagine a future where this is the norm, and people having anything dimmer than full sunlight indoors is considered medieval and backwards. We can always find new limits to what is "useful". UPDATE: In that article, the author also says this of the lightbulb: "It draws about 2 kWh per day (assuming 8h of usage), which costs about $0.30 at typical rates. This is comparable to one day of a modern fridge or one load of laundry. Power is cheap, folks!" This is a perfect example of why we need to talk about climate justice, because the average American refrigerator consumes more energy than an average person in many countries: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23106061/energy-inequity-world-electricity-american-refrigerators https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23106061/energy-inequity-... The rest of the world cannot live the way we currently do in the USA, if we are to avoid catastrophic global heating.
kolinko 4y ago
Aside from the fact that this paradox is not written in stone... Just because the efficiency increases and we use less energy doesn't mean that the cost will fall. The cost of energy will most likely rise in the upcoming years due to factoring in the co2 emissions. At least in Europe and in Poland specifically we are preparing right now for a winter of extremely high energy prices and heating prices. Delivering heat pumps and insulating buildings is on top of government agenda right now. And that is in the middle of summer when temperatures are 20-40 deg C outside.
jimmygrapes 4y ago
Just want to point out that framing it as "climate justice" does absolutely zero favors to anybody who uses it as a selling point. The people who agree with the underlying idea already agree. You only alienate people (like me) who see that term and go "what the fuck are you talking about, what justice, you're not making any sense anymore" even when the underlying ideas are fine. Activists the world 'round need to realize they do not convince people with these terms.

somewhereoutth 4y ago

Yes, a very important principle. See also road building and induced demand. Therefore we should be working to reduce supply of fossil fuels, to 'keep it in the ground'. If there is less to go round, then efficiencies will still be found but used to maintain what we had (as far as practicable) as opposed to increasing demand

fmajid 4y ago
The concept of “induced demand” as if it’s a bad thing is irredeemably stupid. It’s like saying “adding Internet bandwidth is pointless because demand will just rise to match capacity, and we should go back to the days of 56K modems”.
- somewhereoutth 4y ago
  It is a bad thing if we fully understand the personal and social cost of car driving.
alex_sf 4y ago
Which then goes right back to the criticism at the top of this thread: just raise prices and kill poor people.
- somewhereoutth 4y ago
  Raise prices yes, but also redistribute wealth so that poor people don't die. Above a reasonable threshold, personal wealth is arguably theft from the commons anyway.
  - cloutiertyler 4y ago
    I assume you recognize that if you raise prices but also redistribute wealth, people would still collectively continue to use the resource in the same amount. Someone has to go without to reduce the total consumption. Who is it in your example? And by how much such that the total usage decreases?

balfirevic 4y ago

> And if you achieved such insulation, without other more drastic changes to our society, people would just run their AC/heat more to reach more luxurious temperatures. But that has an upper limit - there is an ideal temperature. People won't be cooling their houses to 15°C in the summer and heating them to 40°C in the winter.

pg_bot 4y ago

I dislike whoever named this phenomenon since it is not a paradox. A lot of people bring this up, but fail to realize that there is a limit to induced demand. For example if you are able to light your house with led bulbs you aren't suddenly going to throw up more lights to light up the neighborhood. There are actual limits to demand and you can exceed them through efficiency gains.

game-of-throws 4y ago
There are individual limits to demand, but not societal limits. If LEDs become more efficient, I will not throw up more lights, but Times Square will - and eventually they'll expand operations and build Los Angeles Square. Jevons Paradox is about these societal demands, which influence collective usage of a resource in the opposite direction from individual usage.

throw0101a 4y ago

> Efficiency alone almost certainly will not allow us to avoid climate catastrophe, due to the Jevons Paradox: Meh, it depends. Having a light bulb that uses 15W instead of 100W to illuminate a room is certainly a win. There's only so many lights that you'd put in a given area to achieve the same result, even if you add more for aesthetic reasons: there's only so many lumens that are useful in an area. Furnaces and water heaters are now >90% efficient, and given that they (direct) vent from the outside, and exhaust to the outside increases safety and air leakage. Do you add more heaters and furnaces to a house because each is more efficient. Cars are more efficient, and yet total annual distance driven (in the US) seems to have plateaued and fallen over the last decade or so: * https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/12/distance-driven-per-person-is-still-down-from-its-maximum-in-2004.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/12/distance-driven-per...

skyfaller 4y ago
> There's only so many lights that you'd put in a given area to achieve the same result, even if you add more for aesthetic reasons: there's only so many lumens that are useful in an area. You'd think that, but we now see people experimenting with light bulbs that are bright as the sun, purportedly to improve their mood: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21660718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21660718 "I bought an extremely bright “corn cob” style bulb. It emits as much light as about 40 incandescents, and produces enough waste heat that it needs an internal cooling fan to dissipate it." It's not difficult to imagine a future where this is the norm, and people having anything dimmer than full sunlight indoors is considered medieval and backwards. We can always find new limits to what is "useful". UPDATE: In that article, the author also says this of the lightbulb: "It draws about 2 kWh per day (assuming 8h of usage), which costs about $0.30 at typical rates. This is comparable to one day of a modern fridge or one load of laundry. Power is cheap, folks!" This is a perfect example of why we need to talk about climate justice, because the average American refrigerator consumes more energy than an average person in many countries: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23106061/energy-inequity-world-electricity-american-refrigerators https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23106061/energy-inequity-... The rest of the world cannot live the way we currently do in the USA, if we are to avoid catastrophic global heating.

kolinko 4y ago

Aside from the fact that this paradox is not written in stone... Just because the efficiency increases and we use less energy doesn't mean that the cost will fall. The cost of energy will most likely rise in the upcoming years due to factoring in the co2 emissions. At least in Europe and in Poland specifically we are preparing right now for a winter of extremely high energy prices and heating prices. Delivering heat pumps and insulating buildings is on top of government agenda right now. And that is in the middle of summer when temperatures are 20-40 deg C outside.

jimmygrapes 4y ago

Just want to point out that framing it as "climate justice" does absolutely zero favors to anybody who uses it as a selling point. The people who agree with the underlying idea already agree. You only alienate people (like me) who see that term and go "what the fuck are you talking about, what justice, you're not making any sense anymore" even when the underlying ideas are fine. Activists the world 'round need to realize they do not convince people with these terms.